Jacqueline C. Rineer

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Today it is raining VERY hard outside and I’m not feeling the least bit productive so I decided to get this long overdue post up. At last, I have for you a little office tour. This is where I spend most of my time. It’s still pretty bare right now; we just haven’t put a lot into decorating yet. Still, I love my space. I have plenty of room up here [on the second floor] and plenty of natural light that comes in during the day. True, I still don’t have those curtains I was going to buy, but I’ve actually enjoyed not having any; relishing as much sunlight as possible after living in a basement and this side of the apartment is next to a blank, brick wall so I still have my privacy. I’ll post updates as things get done/added but for now this is my workplace and my sanctuary.

I may add more pics too because it just occurred to me that you can’t really see that bookcase (that the candles and vase are on top of). It’s nothing exciting just packed with books. We have to get another bookcase to store them all.

Hey, all. I know I’ve been needed to blog for a few weeks now and just haven’t done it. I have NOT been busy, not really…just lazy. I’ve been feeling soooo lazy recently. -__-;;

Monday, the 29th of July was my 26th birthday. I did nothing on my birthday. As an adult, one of my favorite things to do on my birthday is nothing. I slept in, painted my toes, watched movies, did some cooking. Basically nothing.

I got stuff, oh yes. In fact, I got a lot more than I expect this year, which still isn’t a lot but I still feel just, so blessed by my 2013 that I can’t help but marvel at the simple things I did receive; mostly from my mom, grandmother, and mom-in-law (thank you and I love you all!). The best of all though, which I am so excited about is this (from my wonderful husband):

I’ve been wanting to take up sewing for quite sometime, ever since the economy robbed us of…well, a lot of things, and I got super creative with what little we had. That, and being a fashion lover and super petite, I knew I had to try it. I’ve been teaching myself to sew by hand for a while, but now I can really get down to business. I’ll try to document a project as soon as I get to something interesting lol. I decided I’m probably going to try to making a few catnip pillows and regular sofa pillows first (which you probably don’t want to see). Eventually, I want to work my way up to actual clothes and sewing my own alterations. I’ve already started practice stitching and gathering supplies. We’ll see how it goes. I hope I turn out to have talent in this area.

The title of my post is such because, while getting things, receiving love and leaning new things is sweet, goodbyes are not. A dear friend of mine moved from Philly to TN at the end of last month to go to school and pursue a career. While I’m happy for her I miss her a lot. She’s probably one of the easiest friends I’ve ever made…What I mean is, it didn’t take long to become close; which is a big deal to me because I, not only have a hard time making friends, but I have a hard time letting people in. Still, we just “clicked” together. It’s cliche, but it really did feel that way. I’m hoping that she comes back for Christmas so we can hang out more. It’s just so incredibly rare that I find a friend like her.

I am so happy to finally be making our apartment into a home. When we moved in back in April we had made a few trips to Ikea and picked up a few “decor-type things” but since then nothing has been going on; we haven’t actually done anything to the place…yet.

Then this month I got super excited about home-making again when our landlord gave us the okay to rebuild our deck (which is falling apart) and grow things in the yard. Motivation! I feel that now that we’re comfortable I am getting the desire to organize things, put away odds and ends that just kind of “sat” for a while, like our books, and seriously consider paint colors and plant types for my box garden that I want to plant outside. I will be posting all this, of course.

Today though, I went through a couple cans of Great Stuff and filled all the cracks I could find. Tomorrow, I’ll shave down all the foamy lumps sticking out and then my next project will be finding curtains for my office and the would-be entertainment area.

I realize that I haven’t shown you any pictures so when I clean this place up again and put all the books away, there will be pics…of my office at least!

Home To-Do List (so I can be held accountable lol):

Hang pictures

Fill cracks

Curtains for upstairs

Pick paint colors and paint

Re-paint staircase

Unpack books

Mount floor-length mirror

There are more things but the husband has to do them so I did not include them here.

I has now been one full month since Tristan and I have moved into our new apartment and exactly one week since we added our other two cats, Max and Stella, back into the mix. There were some spats and struggles at first but it looks like everyone is finally settling in.

Max and Stella in the back of my dad’s truck on their way home.

My parents have been such a huge help to me in the past 2 or so years. They’ve been watching these two for me and this past week brought them back to us. They also bought us some things for the apartment over the week for us like new A/C units!! And my mom hauled some house-warming goodies for me as well knowing that I love good-smelling stuff!

Some Bath & Body Works goodies from my mom

I am so blessed and thankful to have parents that care about me and are happy for me.

I realize that when I was stuck in the basement I felt so depressed, like I wasn’t moving and now I’m finding that I have come very far in my life and I have made a lot of progress; but only I can see it, that’s the frustrating thing. Still, I am trying to learn from the past and be encouraged in the progress I have seen – just because it isn’t physical doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Digital progress, however, is being made. It’s slow but it looks like I may have picked up another project. This summer looks like it might turn out to be…productive?

Sooo…another weekly/bi-weekly…*slash* MONTHLY post. I Instagrammed some stuff from moving in weekend so now I’m just going to ramble/update you about that and getting settled in our new apartment and the stuff that’s happened in the past couple months because I haven’t blogged in forever :)

[1] So I DID go to the Flower Show earlier this year. It was fun. The theme this year was “Brilliant!”, an ode to British stuff and of course, FLOWERS and lots of them. Yes, Lots of pretty things to look at. They had a huge Big Ben type-thing in the center of the room and every hour it would switch from the clock to something else, usually a montage of stuff from the UK (including Doctor Who and Monty Python which of course I got excited about lol) I DID NOT however, get to Sakura Sunday this year :/ Because…

[2] We MOVED!!! You can read about that process here. Other than that nothing much happened in between 1 and 2 except boring parking stuff and LOTS of cleaning. Here’s my living room full of our stuff. The apartment was really, really dirty and I spent many hours cleaning and organizing. Apparently, the person who lived here before us was a hoarder. With cats. I know. Needless to say, I’m still cleaning things up and trying to get rid of mystery smells. BUT it has been worthwhile because I love this apartment and I had 2 years of pent up housekeeping energy anyway. With every little thing I do, the place looks (and smells) better and better. When things are completely clean and put away I’ll take more pics and post them.

[3] Here’s a shot of my office after much work and a trip to Ikea.

[4] I’m so excited because this spring I took on a project that really is close to my heart. One of the women that goes to church with me is starting a non-profit for women based on Mark 5:41-42 which reads as follows:

Holding her hand, he [Jesus] said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed.

Curiously enough, this is a testimony verse of mine. I actually have an interview next week to share my testimony and become a part of many who have already shared theirs with the goal of inspiring women. But shhh…spoilers :)

[5] The fickle Philly weather FINALLY stabilized into spring. Yay!

[6] The cats have gotten comfortable here quite quickly. They like to hang out in my office while I work and distract me. Lately, Gizmo likes to lay in the closet though. I’ll be adding my other cats back into our lives next week! I’m so excited to see them and my parents.